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New 7 Wonders of the World to Be Named
The campaign was begun in 1999 by Swiss adventurer Bernard Weber, with almost 200 nominations from around the world. The list of candidates was narrowed down to 21 by the start of 2006, then Giza was taken out of the running when it was given an automatic spot. Since organizers started a tour to each site last September, the competition has been heating up.
There is no foolproof way to prevent people from voting more than once for their favorite wonder, but most of the votes are cast by Internet in a system that registers each participant's e-mail address to discourage people from voting twice, Viering said.
  Two tourists ride camels past the Treasury, al-Khazneh in Arabic, the famous Petra monument that is carved out of solid rock from the side of a mountain and stands over 40 meters high the first monument seen at end of the Siq, a 1.5 kilometers path that narrows to about five meters (16 feet) with walls towering over 200 meters (656 feet) overhead, May 16, 2007. A flurry of advertisements proclaiming "Vote for Petra, world heritage" are flooding cell phones, radio, television and newspapers in final days of a national campaign to encourage people to pick the ancient city as one of the new seven wonders of world in a massive online poll. The seven winners will be announced July 7, 2007 in Lisbon, Portugal. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser, File) (Nasser Nasser - AP) PHOTOS |
"We have a lot of kids (voting) and that trend is continuing ... but we have votes really from every part of the population," she added.
The original list of wonders were concentrated in the Mediterranean and Middle East. Six of them no longer exist: the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Pharos lighthouse off Alexandria.
After the Egyptian protest, the organizers of the campaign set the pyramids above the competition.
"We absolutely had no problem with this," Viering said. As of Saturday, there will be eight world wonders including the Pyramids of Giza, she said.
Choosing world wonders has been a fascination over the centuries. The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, keeps updating its list of World Heritage Sites, which now totals 851 places. The agency, however, is not involved in the New 7 Wonders project.
Weber's Switzerland-based foundation aims to promote cultural diversity by supporting, preserving and restoring monuments. It relies on private donations and revenue from selling broadcasting rights.
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